Making a fashion statement — on her terms

Brian Cassella/Chicago Tribune

Fashion designer Eileen Fisher at Nordstrom's on Saturday, Sept. 25, 2010. Fisher originally studied interior design -- "When I decided to get into the clothing business, I called my mother and she said, 'Eileen, you can't even sew!' "

Fashion designer Eileen Fisher at Nordstrom's on Saturday, Sept. 25, 2010. Fisher originally studied interior design -- "When I decided to get into the clothing business, I called my mother and she said, 'Eileen, you can't even sew!' " (Brian Cassella/Chicago Tribune)

Eileen Fisher doesn't dress starlets for red carpets or rehab. She doesn't create a new It Bag every season, or drop one-liners as a judge on reality TV.

But Fisher, now 60, has made it as a designer despite forgoing many of the "must-haves" of the modern fashion world. While employing 875 workers throughout her corporate offices and retail stores, she also has raised two children, often greeting them at the bus after school while she built her clothing empire.

Now that her son is a 21-year-old college senior and her daughter is finishing high school, Fisher, a native of Des Plaines, is venturing outside of New York a bit more — sometimes with 17-year-old daughter Sasha. Fisher is challenging the perception of her clothing as solely for comfort-seeking women over 40, and changing the notions of what working motherhood can be.

"When I decided to get into the clothing business, I called my mother and she said, 'Eileen, you can't even sew!' " Fisher studied interior design — well, home economics — at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign after growing up with six siblings (and a mother who did sew). "Clothes were just a part of our lives that were somehow important."

She moved to New York and began working in graphic design and dating a Japanese man. "We'd travel back and forth to Japan and I got inspired by the aesthetic: the kimono, the simplicity, the little cropped pants." She and the boyfriend parted, but "the idea of this clothing line was coming to me."

With three weeks to produce a line, she booked a booth at the boutique trade show in New York. She managed to complete four garments. "I forgot to price the clothes and could barely speak the first day I was there," she said. But she listened and heeded the feedback. At the next show, "people stood in line to buy the clothes."

As the learning curve continued, she persevered, figuring out how to get financing while carrying bolts of fabric up the 83 steps to her Tribeca loft. She produced the first grouping in only white, doing other colors for later delivery when she had some money. "I sold C.O.D. so the boutiques had to pay right away. I was stumbling around figuring it out."

She met her husband at the boutique show, four or five years later. "And we pretty much decided to get married three days after we met, kind of crazy, but thank God — I was already 38, I don't know if I would have been able to have kids if we hadn't moved quickly," she said. "We're since divorced. My daughter was 4 and she's now 17."

He had clothing stores in upstate New York and was passionate about retail. They commuted between Manhattan and Ithaca. "My son was born in '89. The business was really going wild. I was operating on the phone in my upstairs attic space in the house. Oh, God. Those were hard years. It wasn't the business; it was trying to balance it all. I just remember being on the phone and trying to be with my son and trying to feed him and take care of him."

When their son, Zack, was 3, they set up home and shop in Irvington, N.Y. (where she's still based), about 45 minutes by train from Manhattan.

"Familywise it went smoothly for a few more years," Fisher said. "I could pick up the kids from school, a few blocks from the office, and the house was a mile up the road, rebuilt to accommodate office space and assistants."

Single motherhood added to the challenges of work and family balance.

"When I got divorced my kids were with me on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday and with their dad on Monday and Tuesday. So I worked long days on his days, then stopped at 3 on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. I was committed to being in the home when my daughter arrived from school."

Fisher sees the positive side of the challenges, though: "It required empowering others to make decisions," she said. "That has all been deeply rewarded, because people have grown by my letting go. The company is like raising a family; many people in the company have been there forever. And people have grown tremendously — their talents and skills, and personally."

The company has been a leader of work-life balance, including helping to coordinate work-from-home arrangements and more. A wellness program gives employees $1,000 a year for such purposes as massages and acupuncture, and another $1,000 for classes such as pottery, wine tasting, language. "It makes for a much more whole, healthier environment," Fisher said. "If we gave $1,000 as a bonus, they might buy their son a new car, but this is for them. That's a meaningful thing. It's very hard to go get yourself a massage, but if your company pays for it, it's a little easier."

For several years she kept Sasha away from the office. "I wanted her not to live in my shadow, and not always be my shadow."

Recently Sasha participated in the summer leadership program for girls at the office and also has worked in Fisher's lab store in Irvington.

"A couple of years ago, it was well-known that our clothes were for her mom and her mom's friends, but now, not just because she has turned 17, but because the clothes have changed over the years — we call them intergenerational — we have a lot of pieces that work for younger, slimmer people. Sasha has been a real influence for me. I'd see her wear skinny jeans and say, 'How can we do skinny pants for our customer?' She has helped me be more open to mixing up the clothes in new ways."

Many clothing companies view staff and factories as easily replaceable; Fisher doesn't. Her family runs the suburban Chicago outlet store. "Three of my sisters and two of the daughters work in the store there."

She has employed Tibetans in her warehouse as part of a resettlement effort and, she says, "We have women in India and Peru who work in collectives. We create products to continue those relationships.

"It feels very connected."

About 30 percent of Fisher's company is employee-owned. "I was planning to do another 15 percent over the next couple of years," she said. "My plan over time is to sell the company to the company, maybe leave a percentage to my kids.

"Now, I have a lot of passion about other things I'm trying to do. I go to the Clinton Global Initiative every year; lately I've been doing the track on women and girls. We talk about creating a leadership institute for girls and women, because what we're doing is deep and holistic and broad and creative. And wonderful.

"I'm talking about my company but in some ways I can talk about it like it's separate, like my son and daughter. It's not all what I created. With me alone, this would not be the miracle it is today."

Sales for Eileen Fisher were around $270 million in 2009, and the company is predicting about $300 million this year — up about 11 percent. The company has updated its look while taking care not to alienate its core customers, whose average age, based on one study, is 58.

"The way we design the clothes, there's still a very important element of timelessness," Fisher said. "We use a lot of the same fabrics year to year or shift colors that work back to colors we used the seasons before, so people can build a wardrobe. One of the most wasteful things is throwing away clothes year to year."